Marker Therapeutics: Promising Tech, Needs Better Execution

Summary

• Marker Therapeutics' MultiTAA platform has shown promise in overcoming limitations of current generations of T cell therapies.
• Strong Scientific Advisory Board and strategic partnership with Baylor College of Medicine puts them in a favorable position to advance their clinical programs.
• However, recent negative events have raised questions of Marker's ability to execute and communicate with investors.
• Share price is currently trading more than 60% below its 52-week high.
• In this article, I go through briefly on Marker's technology and the recent negative catalysts.

Company Overview

Marker Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MRKR) was formed in October 2017 with a merger of privately held company Marker Cell Therapy, Inc. and TapImmune. Marker is a clinical-stage biotechnology company specializing in the development and commercialization of novel cell-based immunotherapies and innovative peptide-based vaccines for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumor.

Marker has formed a strategic partnership with the Cell and Gene Therapy Center at Baylor College of Medicine (“BCM”) whom they have partnered with for several product candidates. Marker has also formed a Scientific Advisory Board (“SAB”) with various prominent names including Malcom Brenner, founder of BCM and a prominent pioneer in immunotherapy, and James Alison, 2018 Nobel Laureate.

Technology Overview

Marker’s lead product is based on their proprietary Multi Tumor-Associated Antigen (“MultiTAA”) approach, which is based on the selective expansion of non-engineered, tumor-specific T cells that recognize tumor associated antigens (“TAA”) and kill tumor cells expressing those targets.

Marker believes that the MultiTAA T cell platform holds several advantages over current T cell therapy approaches. Cancers are heterogeneous in their expression of antigens, and tumors generally consist of individual cancer cells expressing different antigens, and each of these antigens can be present at a different level that can change over time. As such, therapies targeting only a single antigen are vulnerable to evolutionary escape mechanisms.

Even if the single antigen specific therapy can eliminate all tumor cells expressing the targeted antigen, the residual tumor cells that do not express that antigen may survive and expand. In addition, tumor cells may downregulate or mutate the targeted antigen, thus becoming immune to the T cell therapy. MultiTAA is designed to circumvent this by simultaneously attacking multiple tumor-expressed antigens, enabling more complete tumor targeting and minimizing the cancer’s chances of engaging escape mechanisms.

Marker believes that MultiTAA holds several advantages

Analyst’s Disclosure:I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.